"So let me see if I'm understanding this correctly... Captain Thorne..." The snide, somewhat condescending tone in the man's voice only made the soldiers blood boil hotter. "You want us to believe that these... what did you call them? Cultists, yes that's right Cultists. You want us to believe that these Cultists were responsible for hypnotizing all the nearly three thousand individuals aboard this vessel? That they did this on their own, for a motive you are unable to provide me? Yet you refuse to explain to me how you and your cohorts arrived on-board this Star Destroyer in the middle of relatively nowhere..

"No! I will not believe these pitiful yarns of deceit. You came here with the others. Together you sought to gain control of the Ironside to use her in your nefarious schemes!" The speaker, a naval crewman in his late thirties, slammed his fist down on the interrogation table at the end of his outburst for emphasis. He had slightly graying black hair, and like most of the crewman aboard the Ironside, sported a pale, hallowed look that Thorne had given up trying to explain as a side effect of the dark side energies that they'd been exposed to.

"Thorne, Speicher. Captain, Imperial Army. Service Number-" The rest of Speicher’s scripted response was cut off as Guard Sgt Ulrich landed a solid backhand across his jaw.

Speicher simply smirked upwards at the man who had brought him here from the brig, as a former Special Naval Forces Trooper and Naval Commando he had been extensively trained in the arts of surviving interrogation. The fact that these men had resorted to brute strength so early in the session told him that they were amateurs, and that he had already won.

A lot of good winning this mind game is gonna frakking do.. the Captain thought to himself harshly, You need to be focusing on how you're going to break out of these shackles, your men need you.

Thorne spat a credit-chit sized wad of blood and spit down on the table in front of him before turning his defiant steel-grey eyed gaze up at the man interrogating him. "I want to know where the rest of my squad is. Those men are distinguished soldiers of the Imperial Army and deserve-"

"Those men," Lieutenant Foligano began, his pitch rising in irritation, "Are nothing more than traitors at best, murderers and thugs. They'll be treated as nothing more than that. And you will tell me what I want to know." He added, beady brown eyes narrowing as the commlink built into the table beeped at him. The tall and thin officer reached down and pressed the blinking button. "Yes what is it?" He huffed.

"Sir, uh, the team we sent to secure the shuttle.. well, they're dead sir."

"What?!" Foligano shouted. "How?"

"The shuttle appears to have some sort of intrusion defense system, Sir. It's like nothing I've ever seen."

Speicher leaned back as far as he was able in the durasteel chair with his wrists shackled to the table. "I told you it would be unwise for you to attempt to board our craft." He spoke calmly as he returned Foligano’s furious expression.

"Sir?" The comlink spoke again, "Your orders?"

"Instruct the crew to maintain a safe distance away from the craft until further notice, Tech Sgt. That will be all." The Lt. then turned his attention back onto Speicher. "Well I guess we can add 4 more Imperial Crewman to your body count." He spat out.

"You and I both know that their souls will rest on your back, Foligano, not mine. I tried to warn-" Another backhand, this one much more forceful than the last.

"Your continued lack of cooperation gains you nothing, Thorne. There is no rescue on its way, only a lifetime of solitude in an Imperial prison cell."

"You really are denser than the Maw, aren't you Lt.?" Thorne replied.

A visitor delayed any possible riposte. Thorne waited for a handful of moments, alone with Guard Sgt. Ulrich before the Lt. returned confidently into the room. "Well I've just been informed that your horned friend has rejoined the land of the conscious and is being brought to the next room. Perhaps he will prove to be more generous in his answers."

A slow chill rose up Thorne's spine as he heard the man speak. "Khader is alive?!"

"Yes, indeed. And we hare oh so very curious to hear his side of the story."

"Listen to me, you don't understand who you are dealing with here. You have to kill that man. You have to do it now!" Thorne insisted, straining against the shackles.

"Well that would certainly make things much more convenient for you and your fabrications, wouldn't it, Captain?"

"You foolish bastard. Khader is a powerful member of the Cult of Shadow, he will kill you. He will kill all of you-" The door sealed shut as the Lt. walked out of the room, leaving Guard Sgt Ulrich to watch over Thorne...

"Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." - C. S. Lewis

"Controller this is Reaper One, go ahead." Speicher spoke into the comm device centered on the console of the Dawn's cockpit. Most of the interior lighting was dimmed, leaving only a faint red backlighting to outline the various controls, toggles, and switches. Occupying the remaining three seats in the cockpit were the rest of Captain Thorne's squad.

Sgt Rabin Thiery occupied the co-pilots seat. Thiery, who was also known as Killswitch, had the most years of service of all of the Reapers. He had prior experience first as a standard Army Trooper, and then later in his career as an Imperial Land Assault Trooper. Darker skinned and with a sturdy build, Rabin hailed from the affluent world of Chandrilla and was hands down the largest of the four commandos.

Seated at the Navigation console was Cropper Sykes, AKA Duke. Duke liked to keep his past to himself, though it was well enough known that the bronze skinned soldier with the olive colored eyes came from a fairly exotic world. He spent most of his time before the Reapers with the regular army, but also did some Army Special Forces work as well.

Finally, manning the shuttle's weapons station was Cpl Masan Stone. The youngest and consequently least experienced of the Reaper team, Masan often found himself with crap duties and assignments while consistently being the butt of most of the Reapers jokes. Physically smaller than his squad mates, Cpl Stone compensates with a more-than-healthy dose of enthusiasm and recklessness. He constantly pushes boundaries and strives to over-achieve in comparison to his mates.

"There's been an incident with the Gladiator-class Star Destroyer Ironside. Naval command lost contact with the ship 28 Standard Hours ago. After exhausting all methods of re-establishing communications with her, a scout team was sent to the destroyer's last known location to investigate. They found the following..." Control paused while a data-packet was sent to the 'Dawn.

It took a moment to download, then Speicher pushed a button to spring the images and video to life in holographic fashion. The squad watched on together as the Ironside rained down what appeared to be indiscriminate destruction on vessels, stations, and even planets.

"The scout vessel was eventually destroyed by the destroyer, but not before they managed to beam us this information. As you can see, the Ironside and her crew have gone rogue. This is not acceptable. The Director feels that this matter cannot be trusted to be left in the hands of the Navy, he fears that this may not be an isolated cell but part of a larger group of individuals and doesn't want to risk further complications. Your mission is to board the Ironside, and regain control of her."

"ROE?" Thiery asked slowly, a conflicted expression working its way into his features.

"The Director was clear on this matter. You are authorized to use any and all means necessary to complete this mission. I'm afraid time is of the essence here Reapers. We need you to make for the staging coordinates immediately. Controller out."

Speicher leaned forward and cut off their end of the transmission dismissively. He'd long ago gotten used to the way the Reapers were given assignments. The Captain turned slightly in his seat to face the rest of his squad and glanced over Masan's disbelieving expression to focus on Duke. "Find us a rally point just outside of those coordinates, execute once the jumps plotted." He ordered casually.

"Aye." Came an instinctual reply as Duke immediately set about his assignment.

"Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." - C. S. Lewis

Speicher’s gaze came around full circle as he faced Killswitch. "Alright... Objectives?"

Rabin drummed his fingertips against the control panel in front of him for a handful of moments before he began. "Well, obviously we've got to get onboard to start with."

"Naturally.."

"Take your pick after that... Hyperdrive and propulsion systems, weapons systems, communications, and escape routes." He listed off the hit points, going from fingertip to fingertip.

Thorne took a slow breath as he nodded his agreement. "Disabling hyperdrive and propulsion is straight forward enough. Systems control is a bit trickier, though Gladiator's are fairly outdated..." he paused as the telltale sensation of accelerating to lightspeed swept over him, and then turned to look at Duke once more. "Bring up everything we have on the Gladiator series. Blueprints, software updates, everything. Rook, I want you to find out everything we can about the Ironside specifically."

The pair responded with affirmatives as they focused on their individual terminals. It was only moments later that Duke had transferred the schematics to Thiery's console and another second for the interactive hologram to project itself into the shuttle cockpit between them.

"Alright, let's establish the PACE. I'll go first. Papa: We cruise in under sublights in stealth mode. Land the 'Dawn on the exterior hull and breach through. Rook sabotages the hyperdrive and sets charges so we can take down propulsion if we need to. Duke runs security for him. You and I head for the secondary bridge, neutralize firecontrol and do our best to paralyze the rest of the nonessential systems. We rendezvous... here, and make our way to the bridge, subdue the captain and win the day." He put on his best cheesy action hero grin and pantomimed applause.

"Alright, my turn." Rabin replied. "Alpha: Stealth systems fail, we use the pods to penetrate. Rook and Duke land aft to neutralize propulsion as you said, you make for the alternate bridge to take down systems controls, I make for the hangar to secure us transportation. We rendezvous there, and make for the bridge. Subdue the Captain and we're all shiney heroes." The SGT smirked and pretended to dust off an imaginary medal as he finished.

"Well played." Thorne responded. "Charlie: We fail to neutralize any of the Primary Objectives, we're forced to employ shock and awe. Detonators on all remaining Primary Objectives, and we fight our way towards the top. If we get to the Bridge before they decide that mutiny wasn't worth it, we subdue the Captain as planned."

Theiry sighed slightly but could not disagree. "Fine... Echo: We fail to neutralize Primary Objectives, we fail to reach the bridge and/or subdue the Captain. Tactical Charge to the reactor core and Romeo-Lima-Hotel." He finished grudgingly. The thought of spacing nearly thirty-five hundred fellow sons of the Empire did not sit well with the commando.

"Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." - C. S. Lewis